Cape loses tap dance icon Elaine Chase

An Eastham resident for more than 40 years, tap dance teacher Elaine Chase died peacefully Friday, just a week shy of her 93rd birthday.

JASON COOK

EASTHAM — Elaine Chase never went anywhere without putting on lipstick, said Chuck Frates, one of her best friends and her former dance student.

In the days before her death, during a visit, she was unconscious, but could hear, Frates said. "I told her, 'Elaine, no one put your lipstick on! You are going to be mad when you find out.'"

She smiled, Frates said.

An Eastham resident for more than 40 years, Chase died peacefully Friday, just a week shy of her 93rd birthday, surrounded by family, friends and her beloved cat, Edgar.

It's practically impossible to estimate the number of lives Chase touched in her 92 years.

More than 1,500 students learned tap under her tutelage as the Elaine Chase Dancers or at the Academy for the Performing Arts in Orleans. Countless more saw her dance in parades over the years — including a most memorable performance on her 80th birthday when she danced down Main Street in Orleans.

Her passion for dance began at 9 years old, according to an obituary provided by her family. She trained in New York City and performed solo acts there and at the Cocoanut Grove in Boston.

Chase moved from Baltimore to Cape Cod in the 1970s with her husband, Howard, said her granddaughter Amanda Chase, and her impact in the community began even before she was known as a dancer.

From the 1980s up until just a few years ago, Elaine Chase ran Eastham's Smith Heights Cottages, Amanda Chase said, handling all the day-to-day tasks of running the business, as well as bonding with those who stayed there.

"They looked forward to seeing her," she said of guests' relationships with her grandmother. "She was a part of their lives for decades."

But dance was the way many connected with Elaine Chase.

Frates, who teaches dance in Bedford and Orleans and has known Chase since 1989, called her one of his "best, best friends."

Chase only had one speed, he said: fast. She was a feisty, funny woman whose personality was "an incredible force."

He recalled a time when she was in her 80s and recovering from a major surgery. Frates was the designated driver after the surgery, but Chase refused to be coddled.

"She wanted to drive," he said. They made stops at the Christmas Tree Shop and to buy cat food. At the end, she turned to him and said, "Aren't we going to lunch?"

Full of boundless energy, Chase was dancing into her 80s, Frates said. At her peak, she was teaching a dozen classes between the 1970s and 1990s, with students ranging from young children to the older women who made up much of the Elaine Chase Dancers.

Frates took over the Elaine Chase Dancers when Chase threw out her back dancing in the early 2000s. "She changed my life," Frates said. "I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if it wasn't for her."

Peter Earle, the executive director at the Academy for the Performing Arts, knew Chase for 35 years, and his father and mother even took tap lessons from her. "She was one of the kindest women I've ever met." Calling her an icon and a fixture on the Cape Cod arts scene, Earle said her death leaves a "gaping hole" in the community.

While her life was an inspiration to many, Earle said she was more than that. "Her legacy doesn't speak to how nice a person she was."

"The Cape will never, ever be quite the same," Frates said.

Elaine Chase never let her age or anything else hold her back from doing what she loved, said her granddaughter Amanda, and she encouraged that belief in others.

Spurring on people to pursue things they may not have or to do things that give meaning to their lives, that is the true legacy Elaine Chase leaves behind, she said.